Page 4 of Read My Lips

“I’m not working right now.” My voice crackled in my throat like I’d revisited puberty. “I don’t have to tell you what he said.”

“That’s very petty.” Through the screen, Simon locked me into a solid stare. I resisted squirming right out of his eyeline to hide.

“Yes.” For him, I was butter on a toasted crumpet. But I would char in hell before translating anything Luke had said. “It is.”

It was.

Exceptionally petty. Against my ethics code too, which made me unprofessional and a horrible person. Picking and choosing what to facilitate access to was playing god. But avoiding telling Simon the guy I’d gone home with wanted to shag him more than he wanted to shag me seemed like a reasonable exception. Right?

Simon was bold and vibrant and beautiful. Even if I convinced myself handpainted fan-tailed goldfish swimming about in a silky pool of deep, dark night-sky blue were my destiny, I lacked the guts to go for wallpaper like that. Or him.

Luke shouldered me mostly out of the way of the camera. “I said you could come round. You don’t need to speak to Ben, I’m right here.”

Silence weighed in like we’d dropped into a dead zone.

And then Simon’s voice rang through. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t catch a word of that.” The burred, blurred warmth of his muddied consonants melted deep into me. “There’s a shadow on your face.”

There bloody well was not. All of us could see the screen. Simon’s shoulder lifted in a micro-shrug – innocence itself. Never Had I Ever witnessed him back-peddle.

“Don’t take this the wrong way – Luke, was it? – you’re quite mean-mouthed when you speak.” Oh, there it was. The double-down. “I’m sure your accent is lovely”—Simon stretched the word out, feeding all kinds of warmth into it. Next to me, Luke leaned in, smile half-hitched while Simon reeled him in—“but, I have no idea what it is.”

Four-point-five second eye contact. Remorseful, self-deprecating grimace; I knew his routine.

“I’m afraid,” Simon continued, “it’s throwing off my understanding of the minimal word shapes you are bothering to use.”

“You what?” Luke’s jaw hinged open, confusion fogging over him thicker than a volcanic dust cloud. “Mean-mouthed? I am not.” Planes would be grounded. Crops would fail.

Simon ploughed right on. “Ben, on the other hand, is a wonderfully expressive speaker. Look at him – his face is a perpetual open book.” Beneath his seriousness, Simon’s eyes glinted.

Open-booking my need to stuff my fist into my mouth to keep from laughing my arse off out of sheer panic, that was me. Hearing people never thought about how they shaped their words.

Luke glared.

“Simon’s deaf,” I blurted. Obviously. Why was I making it sound like an excuse?

“Please don’t take this to heart, but nothing you say is remotely intelligible.” Simon’s brows furred together, as though the very concept he’d insulted anyone made him deeply uncomfortable. Because he was a bullshit merchant of the highest order. “I really do need Ben to myself tonight.” The bastard wet his lower lip. He had to know he could destroy entire countries with a move that lethal. “I would be forever grateful to you for letting me steal him away.”

Practically hypnotised by Simon, Luke escorted me out of his flat as soon as I pulled my trousers on. He slammed his front door in my face before I even had my shoes laced up. Then he opened it again to toss my work bag out, and everything spilled across the communal corridor in a drift of pens and old receipts and backdated invoices I’d absolutely remember to give Simon first thing Monday morning.

Half a dozen reinforced locks clattered into place, as if I needed reminding I was never getting back inside.

I sagged against the wall, staring down at the mess of my things. Getting laid this weekend: not happening. Good job I never really liked ultra-high-end wool-mix carpets.

My phone burbled.

Simon

I’ll pick you up outside in ten

For fucksake.

I should have told him to piss off and leave me be. Scrabbling to help in the middle of the night was not the path to vanquishing my unrequited crush. No was a complete sentence. But Simon had never said he needed me before. His whole world had to be on fire. And what if I was the only interpreter in the entire South East stupid enough to pick up their phone at anti-social o’clock in the morning? What then?

Oh dear god, I was so screwed.

CHAPTER

TWO